Encounter spent the first six years of her career operating with the RN's Australia Squadron, before being transferred to the newly formed RAN.

The ship spent the rest of the war patrolling and escorting convoys around Australia and into the Indian Ocean.

[2] Her economical cruising speed was 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph), which allowed the ship to travel 5,436 nautical miles (10,067 km) before exhausting her 1,314 tons of coal.

[6] In 1909, 15 of her crew drowned when a naval longboat was run over by the small coastal steamer Dunmore in Sydney Harbour.

[7] Herbert Wilson, a petty officer aboard Encounter, published his personal log covering 1910–1912, including an account of the British expeditions to Vavaʻu for the total solar eclipse of 28 April 1911.

[6] In the course of that operation, she captured the steamer Zambezi on 12 August and, on 14 September, bombarded Toma Ridge to support the Australian Military and Naval Expeditionary Force which was besieging the town.

[5] The cruiser also operated in the Malay archipelago during early 1916, but was recalled to Australian waters on 11 February 1916, because all other RAN ships had been deployed elsewhere.

[5] In July 1916, during a visit to an unnamed island off the coast of Western Australia, two bronze cannons were discovered by Encounter officers Commander C.W.

They were ... 6 feet apart and certainly had the appearance of leading marks ... a large number of the ship’s company landed and next day, shifted sand over practically the whole area for a considerable depth.

[6] The cruiser remained with the convoy until a rendezvous point in the Indian Ocean, where responsibility was handed over to ships of the East Indies Station.

[5] In August, the cruiser assisted in the search for the missing merchantman SS Matunga; it was not known until 1918 that she had been a victim of the German raider Wolf.